


wrap this moment in a bow

by ghostrunner



Category: Folgers "Home for the Holidays" Commercial
Genre: F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:17:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostrunner/pseuds/ghostrunner





	wrap this moment in a bow

By “they waited up all night for you,” she is pointing out that they didn’t. Clearly. If they had they’d be here, waiting in the kitchen to greet him at the door, like she is.

There’s a moment at the door where he looks at her and really _sees_. Who she is. Who she’s become. This is not the tomboy with dirty pink tennis shoes and scraped knees he left behind.

She holds her hands out to him. Says, “sister,” like a title, and he finally, finally takes her in his arms.

\--

He gives her a patterned black box like something made to hold a precious treasure inside. A gift of the magi. ‘I treasure you,’ she is saying, when she sticks the bow to his chest. You are the only gift I need.

\--

They pile on coats and hats and scarves and gloves and boots and trundle outside; look at each other and laugh, shyly. Winter makes it so hard to be close.

The Christmas carnival is still held in the center of town, just the way it was when they were kids. She traces the painted eyes of the carousel horses and her brother lets her ride the black one, always his favorite, swings himself easily up onto the next in line. She stares at the back of neck where the ends of his too-long hair curl softly, presses her knees into the horse’s wooden sides as the music spins.

Faster, she is telling it with her legs, with her hands. Faster, and we can catch him.

\--

Everything is too fast, now. Her hands flutter through wrapping presents and cutting out sugar cookies. “Slow down,” her mother tells her, swatting playfully at her brother as he steals the broken leg of a gingerbread man. “Slow down, it’s not a race.”

But time is moving and moving and soon he will leave again. She stays up with him late at night, watched by the dark tree and the dying embers in the fireplace. Sitting whisper-close on the couch and talking about Nigeria and air travel and bicycle maintenance and the things he’s seen that he wishes he could show her and the things he wishes he could forget.

Her legs are awkward in the space between them. Too knobby and too long, unable to avoid tangling with his. He hooks his hand around her ankle, cold fingers slipping under her fuzzy knit socks.

The ticking of the kitchen clock is unnaturally loud in the dark.

\--

The traditional family walk around the neighborhood to look at all the Christmas lights falls into its traditional lines: their parents lingering to talk to this person and that, leaning over fences twinkling with fake icicles, accepting endless cups of watery cocoa and store bought cookies. She and her brother walking ahead, not racing or fighting or throwing snow balls anymore but still walking fast to admire the next house, and the one after that.

Around a corner and a wind made of icy knives cuts down the street and into her jacket. She shivers, teeth chattering, and her brother glances down at her. “Cold?” he asks, and she’s about to give him a double dose of sarcasm, _On a balmy spring day like this? No, my teeth always make that noise._ , but he wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into him.

He’s much taller, but his hip fits against the curve of her waist and when she takes a moment to synchronize their steps they sway smoothly down the sidewalk in time with the blinking of the giant light-up Santa on the Robinsons’ porch. She slides her hand into the warmth of his pocket.

They stop to admire a Nativity scene composed of plastic dinosaurs. “RaptorJesus,” her brother says, gravely, “very cutting edge.” They look at each other and burst out laughing. The laughter dies down, the look continues.

His gaze has become searching and very, very blue. His cheeks are shaded with rough gold where he hasn’t bothered to shave for days. His eyes go over her head, scanning for something and she thinks maybe he’s looking at their parents right behind them and maybe he’s checking that they’re _not_.

She wishes she weren’t wearing a multi-colored knit cap with pom-poms on the top.

She’s searching for something innocuous to say, but her brain is empty of all words except, _I missed the dimple when you smile, that’s why I stare at your mouth all the time_ , and _your hands are calloused and rough from building houses and hauling water and I love it when you touch me_.

Dear, God, she thinks, whatever you do don’t say _that_ , and that’s when he cups her chin in one gloved hand, tilts her face up, and kisses her. Not a deep, messy, Hollywood swooning kiss, but not a brotherly one either, even if they were the sort of family that kissed each other, which they aren’t.

His mouth is cold and her lips are chapped and at any moment they could be surrounded by people who know them, know who they are to each other, and of all their bad ideas this is… well, _perfect_. This is heaven. Through two coats, two sweaters and two shirts she’s convinced she can feel the warmth of his chest against hers.

The baby RaptorJesus gazes on with a toothy, beatific smile.

\--

Their parents have to drag them out of bed in the morning to open presents.

“What’s with you kids? Old enough to stay up late and too old for presents? Okay then.”

They say nothing about the purpling mark on her collarbone just under the neck of her sweater, and they seem not to notice that her mouth and throat are scraped red (or maybe they do but just aren’t sure what stubble burn looks like), but the smile draws some attention.

“Good morning to you, too,” her mother says with some surprise. “You excited for presents or what?”

She catches her brother’s eye over the kitchen counter. He’s pouring a cup of coffee and he’s got a bright red love bite just under the edge of his jaw.

“Just filled with Christmas cheer,” she says, and she lets their fingers brush when he hands her the cup.

There’s that dimple she loves so much.

\--

_fin_


End file.
